CHAPTER FIVE: The Vanishing
1051 Words
KAYLA
When I opened my eyes again, the room was steeped in that light of early evening. My lashes stuck together, heavy from crying. My head throbbed.
I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes.
The clock on the wall blinked back at me: 5:12 PM.
My blood turned to ice.
My breath caught in my throat.
Wait.
What time does the bus drop her off? My mind scrambled, sluggish and panicked.
Five. Always five.
“Elena?” I called, already rising to my feet, my voice cracking with alarm. “Baby? Are you home?”
Silence.
I rushed to the kitchen, expecting to find her at the counter, maybe munching on crackers or drawing with those little rainbow markers she loved.
Empty.
“Elena?” I called louder this time, stepping into the living room.
Still nothing.
Her little backpack wasn’t near the door.
Her shoes weren’t on the mat.
The silence was deafening.
“Elena!” I screamed now, frantic, darting to the window, yanking the curtain aside.
No school bus outside.
No one walking up the path.
Just an empty street, dim and quiet.
My heart pounded against my ribs like it was trying to break free. I stood in the middle of the room, arms shaking, head swiveling like I’d suddenly forgotten where I was.
This couldn’t be real. This wasn’t real.
“She’s… she’s probably just playing a prank,” I mumbled to myself, trying to breathe. “Maybe she’s hiding…”
But even as I said it, I knew.
She’d never do that. She wouldn’t disappear on purpose.
My eyes darted toward the clock again.
5:17PM
Seventeen minutes.
She had never been late.
Never.
I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. I collapsed onto the couch like the air had been yanked out of my lungs.
“No… no, no, no…”
I grabbed my phone with shaking hands.
Only one person might know her whereabouts.
Lia.
I hit her name so fast I nearly dropped the phone. It rang once. Twice—
“Kay-Beeeeeee!” Lia answered with her usual sass, and under any other circumstance, I would’ve smiled.
But I couldn’t even speak.
“Wow, seems like you have something to gist me? ” she teased, laughing lightly.
“Lia…” My voice cracked like glass.
Instant silence.
“Babe?” Her tone changed instantly. “What’s going on?”
I choked on the words. “Please… please tell me Elena is with you…”
A pause.
A beat of confusion.
“…Wait, what?”
“Please,” I whispered, nearly breathless, “just tell me she’s there with you. Please, Lia. Tell me she walked to your place. That she’s eating Grissini and watching cartoons. Please.”
Lia’s voice turned to steel. “Kayla… she’s not with me today. I thought you were getting her off the bus.”
My knees buckled.
I dropped onto the couch, the phone still pressed to my ear, my soul falling into a dark, screaming void.
“No… no… no, this isn’t happening—”
“Kayla?! Kayla, answer me!”
“She’s gone…” I sobbed, shaking uncontrollably. “She’s not here, Lia. I’ve checked everywhere. She didn’t come home. I woke up and she wasn’t—she’s not—” My voice broke into raw, incoherent cries. “My baby’s gone!”
“Oh God,” Lia whispered. “I’m coming. Right now. You need to call the police—”
“I can’t think!” I screamed, clenching my hair. “I can’t—I can’t breathe! What if someone took her? What if she’s—she’s—”
“Kayla. Listen to me. Listen. Call the cops. NOW. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Do you hear me?”
I was halfway to the bedroom, fumbling into shoes, my vision blurred with tears, when—
Buzz.
A sharp vibration on the counter.
I froze.
My body moved on instinct, slow and heavy, like I was underwater. I turned and picked up the phone.
Unknown Number.
My blood turned to frost.
I swiped open the message.
“A marriage to Kaiden Blackwood or you’ll never get to see Elena alive.”
I didn’t scream.
I howled.
A sound ripped out of me that didn’t feel human. I dropped the phone like it had burned me, then dropped to my knees, crawling after it.
“No—no—no—please, no—”
I stared at the words, reading them again and again, hoping—begging—they would change.
My body shook as I cradled the phone to my chest, curling forward, rocking like I could somehow wake up from this. “Please don’t hurt her. Please…”
My baby.
My sweet, silly girl who asked about her papa just this morning. Who giggled when I kissed her belly. Who still couldn’t tie her shoes without sitting down.
They had her.
And I had no idea who.
Why Kaiden? Why his name?
It wasn’t a ransom. It wasn’t about money. This wasn’t a robbery.
This was personal.
It was a message. A warning. A threat.
Tied to the one thing I’d said no to.
The marriage.
Kaiden Blackwood.
I didn’t even know him beyond that event when we were younger, beyond that stupid ballroom, beyond the cold fury in his eyes and the fire in his words.
What the hell did he have to do with Elena?
Why use her to get to me?
“I will kill you,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision as I clutched the phone. “I will end you, whoever you are. You don’t touch a child. You don’t touch my child.”
But the words on the screen glowed like a death sentence.
A marriage to Kaiden… or else.
I sat there, shaking, until Lia burst through the door minutes later, breathless and wild-eyed. Her gaze locked on mine, then darted to the shattered pieces of me on the floor.
“Kayla…” she whispered, kneeling beside me. “What happened?”
I didn’t answer.
I just turned the phone screen toward her.
And watched her eyes go wide with horror.
They wanted me desperate.
They wanted me afraid, and they got me.
Whoever it was, they wanted to break me and it’s damn working.
- Writer
